IGN Exclusive: Kevin Smith Interview (Part 3 of 3)

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The thrilling conclusion to our 3-part serial, in which we discuss movies, comics, television and Bruce Willis.

By Travis Fickett

For someone who has cultivated and embodied the image of an uber-slacker, Kevin Smith is a very busy man. He writes, he directs, he speaks, he blogs, he podcasts, he acts. He's doing television, movies, books, comics (sometimes), and even poetry readings. His latest book, My Boring-Ass Life is out this week. It's a compilation of his diary-style blog entries that are found over a variety of his websites. The book provides a characteristically candid view of Smith's day-to-day life; his work, his family life, and perhaps most notably the poignant and moving story of Smith's friend and long time collaborator Jason Mewes' battle with substance abuse.

Because Smith is involved in so many projects, from Heroes: Origins to Reaper and his new films, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Red State, he has a lot to talk about. He's also not one to shy away from discussing popular culture, which has always been one of his driving passions as well as a theme throughout his work.

Previously, on the IGN TV interview with Kevin Smith:

In the second installment of our 3-part Kevin Smith interview, we were talking about Smith's new script, a non-traditional horror film titled Red State. In talking about what it was that frightened him, the topic moved from his movies to a new outlet Smith employs online: his podcast with producer Scott Mosier, which they call "Smodcast."

IGN TV: This actually goes back to a Smodcast you just did. You were talking about the crazy science experiments, and one of them was the experiment where people were talked into shocking a puppy?

Smith: That blew my mind, man.

IGN TV: You said on the podcast that in the conclusion to the experiment the scientist wrote that if a Nazi-style regime were ever to emerge in the United States -

Smith: They would have no problem finding people to run death camps.

IGN TV: How f***ed up is that?

Smith: That article just blew my hair back. That's one of those gems you find online where you're like "What a great use of my time that was." Like reading all of this s***, who knew? Who knew that someone cut off a dog's head and made it live? Just to see if he could do it, and also because of that research they were eventually able to start working on the artificial heart and s*** like that. As ghastly as the living dog head is, or sewing a dog to another dog, the Stanford Prison experiment, or the shock therapy experiment - those are the ones that'll keep you up at night. Knowing that there are people that will continue to press that button, knowing that someone is in agony in the next room, or seeing the agony right in front of them, just because somebody told them "We need you to do this." For free! I guess they don't say in the article whether people were paid for their time, but most experiments you aren't, you know? Most of them are volunteers or they're doing it for at best 10 bucks.

IGN TV: That story I found amazing. Mostly because why would you want to do something bad to a puppy? It's a puppy!

Smith: I love SModcast so much. It makes me happy doing it, but it makes me even more happy going back and listening to the older ones because we're up to episode 30 I think now. And Scott Mosier makes me laugh so much. Whenever I get down and I'm feeling kind of s***ty about something, I pop on a SModcast and Mosier never fails to make me laugh.

Smith: (laughs) He's maybe not that different, though he's definitely shorter than Stephen Merchant. He's a normal attractive dude, with a great f***ing voice. And he comes up with great crackpot s*** that makes me laugh.

IGN TV: Do you ever feel like you're just going to run out of material? You're doing the blog, you're doing movies, SModcast&#Array;

Smith: Yeah, I do sometimes. That's my worry with SModcast from time to time, where I'm like "God, if we keep doing it from week to week&#Array;I figure if we can get through the first year and do 52 weeks, 52 full episodes, then maybe we'll cut it back to one every other week. But I don't know. Like today we recorded one, and then I have to go away for a week and half but I had to go out of town so I said maybe we should bank another one. So we kind of shot our wad on the first one, so we just turned to the Net. And the Net will never let you down in terms of having s*** to talk about. So we started with this news story and then I just opened up a question thread on the website, and on MySpace as well, and said "We're doing SModcast, so hit us with some questions." And the MySpace turned into 172 questions in ten minutes. So we suddenly had something to go off of, where I was like "This guy wants to know&#Array;" and that all spirals off into separate conversations as well. So any time I get afraid we're going to run out of s*** to say I realize we can sit there and bulls*** about nothing for a long time too.